Nevermind - Nirvana (US) > Reviews > NEVERMIND (1991) [ALBUM ONLY REVIEW]

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Powerful music only matched after its release, but a depth unrivalled to this day
Disadvantages:	An ironic depth to the album, which many won't or simply can't understand

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

One of the most wildly misunderstood albums ever. If you think alternative music is nothing but the thrashing of drums, a doggie bag of electric guitar left over from the grand old days of Iggy Pop and The Stooges then only NEVERMIND can prove you wildly mistaken because like all artistic masterpieces it transcends its genre magnificently. The sole reason, with the brilliance of the band that now included David Grohl from the Foo Fighters, came in the form of its constructor Kurt Cobain, an illustriously troubled and thoughtful master of contradictions.

1. 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'

This acclaimed opening song is a self-examination of Cobain's role, his position as one of the forefathers of the dying grunge era. Effacing the fans around him, sharing their adolescence and rejection of society through the music but with a distinct misunderstanding of the music, it's an enlightening start to the whole album.

2. 'In Bloom'

Cobain's position in grunge as an architect, 'In Bloom' gives us an idea of the fans surrounding him, their misguided interest of the fashion attached to the music in place of a real appreciative interest. "He's… the world and he… likes all our pretty songs and he… likes to sing along and he… likes to shoot his gun but he… don't buy what it means, don't know what it means."

3. 'Come As You Are'

A vivid portrait of what Cobain wants from the scene, fans immersed in only the music and not the coinciding bullsh*t attached, it introduces someone of interest to him, a friend, perhaps a lover, but ultimately a fan of the music who he doesn't want to be like all the others.

4. 'Breed'

An infectious little song, there is a whole world of satirical content within its scathing satire of the fans who dramatise their socially declined but somewhat comfortable middle-class lifestyles. Directly sung to his friend, he announces that "even if you have, even if you need" he doesn't care anymore because he can't and won't be sold.

5. 'Litium'

A portrait of Cobain after he's refused to be sucked into the fake scene he helped create, refusing to conform to the masses, it is in effect a tragic love song after his friend has opted for the fashion in place of the music, from which he finally finds out who his real friends, and so fans, are. Left out in the cold, he determines not to crack.

6. 'Polly'

A metaphor of the friend who left him and the grunge scene he's sitting on the fence of, he gradually frees Polly the bird and so frees with it any second thoughts of returning.

7. 'Territorial Pissings'

This angry song takes us straight back to the time, like a flashback, when he was knee-deep in the frustration of the scene and searching for a way to get out of there, finding a "better way".

8. 'Drain You'

Here we have his friend (for namesake, Polly) trying to talk him round to coming back, to change his decision, using compliments to entice him. The song then delves into a thoughtful brew of guitars and sounds, propounding him to be thinking about her proposal in light of his feelings for her.

9. 'Lounge Act'

Bursting from a quiet contemplative moan, Cobain tells Polly not to tell him what he "wants to hear" and using his love of her and the music against him.

10. 'Stay Away'

A raw song, after all of Polly's attempts to cajole him into going back, he tells her and everybody else to stay away ("stay awaaaaaaaaaaaay!") until he's free at last, having escaped the mediocrity of the grunge fashion and fad.

11. 'On A Plain'

Singing freely, almost happily, this song is a contemplation of who he was ("worse at what I do best, for that gift I feel blessed"), and it's as he takes stock of himself as the architect who never really fitted in that you realise what a gift he has chose to throw away.

12. 'Something In The Way'

The finale is a haunting masterpiece, its sorrowful imagery depicting Cobain living out the rest of his days under a bridge, alone and brooding as he feeds of the drippings from those who walk over him, a masterful metaphor of the music and the fans. Capitulating the entire album, it gives a lasting kick in the balls to the era he felt he never really belonged.

An album of this depth couldn't be written unless the writer lived what he wrote, and Kurt Cobain did, and this alone, not the power of the music, power incarcerated by his genius, or the myth of his subsequent death, which adds tremendous resonance to the album's anguish; only through him having lived what he wrote, this is what separates NEVERMIND from its predessors and hundreds of followers, and what makes it the undisputed masterpiece it is.

As a footnote, the album doesn't end without getting in a final gesture of defiance. About fifteen minutes after 'Something In The Way', a hidden song appears. A typical grunge song, all guitar and distortion, but of such accuracy in its depiction of what grunge fans wanted to hear (the same hardcore grunge fans who think of this album as a sell-out, too polished), hidden at the end to cleverly declare that if Cobain really wanted to make this kind of music again, like Nirvana's previous album BLEACH, if he really wanted to conform to the murkiness it represented for him, he clearly could have, quite effortessly. Superb. 

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